Towards a Diffractive Apparatus (2023).
In Towards a Diffractive Apparatus for the Socio-Spatial Study of the Former Yugoslav Region I adopt Karen Barad’s diffractive methodology to study difference and boundary-making in socio-spatial practices within the Former Yugoslav region.
The socio-spatial practices and geopolitical boundary-making in the Former Yugoslav region that I illustrate include the 1915 map titled “The Yugoslav Territory” commissioned by the Yugoslav Committee of London and drawn by ethnologist Niko Županić, a photograph pairing of two conferences, the 1961 Non-Aligned Movement Summit and the 1978 Comrade Woman Conference, Dubravka Ugrešić’s literary account of Yugoslav borderland spas paired with Davor Konjikušić’s photo essay, and Rio Tinto’s promotional video of the Jadar Valley mining plan. The term ‘Former Yugoslav’ is employed in this study to underscore the impact of historicity, nationalisms and socio-economic ambition that predates the federal unification, and further engages boundary-making within and across the Balkan Peninsula. The practices mentioned above inform—and are informed—by geopolitical, socio-economic and eco-cultural structures, and are characterised by a dynamic re/de-territorialisation through diplomacy, bordering, natural capitalisation, administrative ordering of natureculture, and critique of the notion of the neutral ground. This essay highlights the need to address notions of territory, property, natural capital, and the social in their relationality in architectural research.
The project asks how can Barad’s diffractive methodology be used to study difference and boundary-making in socio-spatial practices within the Former Yugoslav region? It is organised around four stories that are interrupted by conceptual meditations, and it concludes with a critical discussion on cartography as practice, engaging posthumanist concepts from Barad and Braidotti, and differential thinking from Cerwonka, Koobak and Marling.
In Towards a Diffractive Apparatus for the Socio-Spatial Study of the Former Yugoslav Region I adopt Karen Barad’s diffractive methodology to study difference and boundary-making in socio-spatial practices within the Former Yugoslav region.
The socio-spatial practices and geopolitical boundary-making in the Former Yugoslav region that I illustrate include the 1915 map titled “The Yugoslav Territory” commissioned by the Yugoslav Committee of London and drawn by ethnologist Niko Županić, a photograph pairing of two conferences, the 1961 Non-Aligned Movement Summit and the 1978 Comrade Woman Conference, Dubravka Ugrešić’s literary account of Yugoslav borderland spas paired with Davor Konjikušić’s photo essay, and Rio Tinto’s promotional video of the Jadar Valley mining plan. The term ‘Former Yugoslav’ is employed in this study to underscore the impact of historicity, nationalisms and socio-economic ambition that predates the federal unification, and further engages boundary-making within and across the Balkan Peninsula. The practices mentioned above inform—and are informed—by geopolitical, socio-economic and eco-cultural structures, and are characterised by a dynamic re/de-territorialisation through diplomacy, bordering, natural capitalisation, administrative ordering of natureculture, and critique of the notion of the neutral ground. This essay highlights the need to address notions of territory, property, natural capital, and the social in their relationality in architectural research.
The project asks how can Barad’s diffractive methodology be used to study difference and boundary-making in socio-spatial practices within the Former Yugoslav region? It is organised around four stories that are interrupted by conceptual meditations, and it concludes with a critical discussion on cartography as practice, engaging posthumanist concepts from Barad and Braidotti, and differential thinking from Cerwonka, Koobak and Marling.
